Zarnow: Students get a spin for science

Dec. 6, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Students from Woodbridge and Huntington Beach high schools walk past the base of a 45-meter-long wind turbine blade during a tour of Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach. The tour was part of an event organized by the non-profit Frontier Learning. KENT TREPTOW, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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From left, Villa Park High School students Joshua Huang, Lizzy Steger and Christina Nguyen, all 17, take part in a science competition at Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach. KENT TREPTOW, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Students from Woodbridge and Huntington Beach high schools walk between two 45-meter-long wind turbine blades during a tour of Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach on Dec. 1. The tour was part of an event organized by the non-profit Frontier Learning. KENT TREPTOW, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Students from Woodbridge and Huntington Beach high schools inspect components of a wind turbine during a tour of Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach on Dec. 1. KENT TREPTOW, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Students from Woodbridge and Huntington Beach high schools listen to project manager Ryan Nagle during a tour of Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach. The tour was part of an event organized by the non-profit Frontier Learning. KENT TREPTOW, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Students from Woodbridge and Huntington Beach high schools, right, stand beside a 45-meter-long wind turbine blade during a tour of Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach. KENT TREPTOW, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

1 of 7

Students from Woodbridge and Huntington Beach high schools inspect components of a wind turbine during a tour of Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach on Dec. 1. KENT TREPTOW, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Students from Woodbridge and Huntington Beach high schools walk past the base of a 45-meter-long wind turbine blade during a tour of Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach. The tour was part of an event organized by the non-profit Frontier Learning. KENT TREPTOW, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

When educators bemoan the fact that American students don't score well in science compared with students in other industrial nations, they're worried about our ability to innovate.

Science, technology, engineering and math are about problem-solving, and America wants to be in the solutions business.

One problem is that not enough kids get interested.

Why should they? A UC Berkeley study last year found that in about 90 percent of California elementary schools, students are taught science without being required to perform hands-on experiments.

Some experts say that scientific curiosity isn't best nurtured in the classroom, anyway. It's found in museums and on field trips, where students can see the application hitting the road.

This past week, about 20 Orange County high school students (and recent grads) studied science on a Saturday – where the application turns in the wind.

They competed in a science bowl held at Modular Wind Energy in Huntington Beach, which designs and manufactures huge wind-turbine blades for wind farms.

"They take the things we're learning in school and put it into application," said Max Kovary, a senior at Huntington Beach High School.

"That's why science is amazing. You're able to answer just these grand questions based on theories. And when you apply them, it's pretty cool."

Jenson Benn, Huntington Beach High Class of 2010, competed three times in the National Science Bowl competition for high schools that is sponsored by the Department of Energy.

Now he's taken a year off from UC Berkeley to start a nonprofit, Frontier Learning, to expand that program to local businesses. The first regional competition was hosted by Modular Wind Energy.

No point in holding it in an auditorium.

"Science never becomes real in high school," explains the physics major. "We want to let participants see the principles applied."

Students spent the morning competing over rigorous questions:

List the gasses in the Earth's atmosphere from most to least abundant.

As of 2010, wind power generated what percentage of the world's energy?

A 10 kilogram mass rests on a horizontal, frictionless surface. A horizontal force of five newtons is applied to the mass. After the force has been applied for one second, what is the velocity of the mass?

The major groups of fungi are assigned names on the basis of what characteristics?

Clearly, they all speak science. But then they move on to the story problem – and suddenly you're talking application.

Ryan Nagle, project manager at Modular Wind and one of its first employees, gives students a tour. On it, the students see science in practical application.

The 5-year-old private startup wants to lower the cost of blades that attach to turbines on wind farms. Blades can be as long as 70 meters, weighing 12 tons. The longer the blade, the more wind it captures and the more energy produced.

If it were hard to move the Space Shuttle, imagine hauling these blades to a remote wind farm. Transportation is an expensive issue.

•••

Wind farms are an engineer's playground.

Nagle rattles off some of the specialties: Engineers for tooling, processing, structure, stress, composites – even environmental engineers to worry about things like bird migratory patterns.

There's a Wild West element to it all.

When the off-site testing process was slow, Modular Wind built its own test stand.

When it needed a Gantry crane, it built one.

Nagle talks about torque, and the students nod knowingly. He challenges them: Figure out a better place to locate the anemometer to measure wind speed.

They start tossing out suggestions. It was a science bowl of a different sort.

Linus Chen, a sophomore at Woodbridge High School in Irvine, liked seeing how Modular Wind uses science.

"The science we learn, any application for it has already been found and used."

He asked if the nose of the turbine was facing the wind and was pleased by the complexity of the answer – calculated down to one decimal place for the exact degree.

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